Taylor Swift Silences “Welcome to New York” Critics, Donates to Public Schools

“Welcome to New York,” the first track on Taylor Swift’s new album 1989, has gotten some blowback from those who’ve lived in New York for longer, and under less luxurious circumstances, than Swift herself (who bought an apartment in Manhattan earlier this year). The Village Voice described the city of Swift’s song as “generic, flat, and lifeless a New York as has ever existed in pop culture,” saying the song could as easily be titled “Welcome to Des Moines.” That the tourism department of New York City named Swift a “global welcome ambassador” this week only added to the mockery: Who was Swift to be singing about a city in which she’d just arrived?

But those who thought Swift would be silenced forgot how good she is at shaking things off. Swift announced, in an appearance on The View today, that she would be donating all of the…